An Israeli Boom With The UAE!!!

 

ISRAEL

Globalization MENA-Style

The peace accord between Israel and the United Arab Emirates has created a tourism boom in Dubai, where Israelis now visit the gold markets and other attractions in the wealthy city on the Persian Gulf.

Braving COVID-19 and overcoming decades of suspicion, more than 50,000 Israelis have taken the three-hour flight to visit the UAE since the August deal, the Washington Post reported. Another 70,000 were expected to spend Hanukkah in the Muslim country. “To me this feels like the Iron Curtain lifting,” Adina Engal, an Israeli tourist in Dubai, told the newspaper.

An American rabbi who had been serving the small preexisting Jewish community in the UAE has been overwhelmed helping to accommodate the newcomers, reported National Public Radio. One Israeli visitor asked whether the local Starbucks used camel milk in its coffee, which would not be kosher.

There’s also the potential for Iranian attacks on Israelis in the UAE. Reports of Emirati security forces nabbing an Iranian cell in the country were later denied, however.

The traveling will eventually be both ways. After Israel lifts travel restrictions due to the pandemic, tourism officials expect 100,000 Emiratis to visit the country to see sites in the Holy Land as well as meet with Israeli tech entrepreneurs, the Arab News, a Saudi Arabian news outlet, wrote.

Not everyone likes the cultural exchange. Writing in Middle East Monitor, opinion writer Adnan Abu Amer claimed that too many Israelis brought illegal drugs and patronized prostitutes.

“It has become clear that any Israeli tourist in Dubai can go up to a hotel room to attend a party, pay $1,000 and jump into the pool of iniquity,” Abu Amer argued. “All of this is happening openly, while the Emirati authorities turn a blind eye to tourists spending a week in Dubai for sexual purposes.”

Palestinians were also disappointed. Emiratis can now travel in and out of Israel freely while Palestinians can’t easily do the same, opined writer Jala Abukhater in Al Jazeera. While an Israeli can hop on a plane and fly directly to the UAE, a Palestinian living in Ramallah would first need to cross the border into Jordan and catch a flight from an airport there to Dubai. That journey easily takes a day.

The Emiratis aren’t alone, however. Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan also signed deals normalizing relations with Israel last year. Egypt and Jordan had already done so.

Rumors of the death of globalization, it appears, were premature.

WA